The University of Houston will lead a
public-private research team that has been awarded $3.1 million by the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a low-cost superconducting wire that
could be used to power future wind turbines.

This support is part of the DOE’s Advanced
Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, which recently announced it
has awarded $156 million to 60 cutting-edge research projects designed to
improve how the U.S. produces and uses energy.

UH, in conjunction with SuperPower Inc., the DOE’s
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Tai-Yang Research and
TECO-Westinghouse Motor Company, will develop an efficient, low-cost high-temperature
superconducting wire (HTS) to use in future advanced wind turbine generators.
This breakthrough technology is a key enabling technology for other
electromagnetic devices as well.

Venkat “Selva”
Selvamanickam, M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering, director
of the Applied Research Hub of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University
of Houston (TcSUH) and Chief Technology Advisor for SuperPower, will lead the
research project.

“This grant will be used to
produce a high-performance superconducting wire to build a light, high power and high efficiency wind turbine generator.
Superconducting wire enables us to build wind generators with power ratings at 10
megawatt and above, which are suitable for offshore wind power plants,”
Selvamanickam said. “The use of high-power generators can reduce installation,
maintenance and capital costs of the turbine and the wind power plants.”

“While conventional
generator windings are made of copper wire, with a superconducting wire, it is
possible to pass hundreds of times more electric current than a copper wire,”
Selvamanickam said. “But the cost of superconducting wire
is currently very expensive. Our goal is to develop a low cost superconducting wire
that will make superconducting wind generators become more practical for
widespread use.”

Arthur P. Kazanjian, general manager at
SuperPower, said, “SuperPower, which is now establishing a Specialty Products
facility at the UH Energy Research Park, will transition the technology now
being developed at UH to SuperPower’s manufacturing plant in Schenectady, N.Y. This
project builds on the wire technology that was developed in Schenectady since
SuperPower’s formation in 2000 and improved further by a two-fold better performance
achieved at UH last year.”

In this project, Tai Yang Research, a Florida-based
corporation, will fabricate and test a wind turbine generator coil using the
new superconducting wire based on design developed by TECO-Westinghouse Motor
Company.

TECO-Westinghouse Motor Company, as the principal
purveyor of the generator design, will focus its efforts on the design analysis
and manufacturability of the resulting scalable generator design to include
cryogenic cooling and quench protection demonstration. TECO-Westinghouse Motor
Company will use the new superconducting wire to build offshore wind turbine
generators and the next generation of power-dense motors and generators. NREL
will evaluate the impact of the enhanced superconducting wire on the overall
system performance.

The projects that received ARPA-E support all
focus on accelerating innovations in clean technology while increasing the
nation’s competitiveness in rare-earth alternatives and breakthroughs in
biofuels, thermal storage, grid controls and solar power electronics, the DOE
said.

“These innovative projects are at the forefront
of a new technological frontier that plays a critical role in our future energy
security and economic growth,” says Arun Majumdar, director of ARPA-E. “It is
now more important than ever to invest in game-changing ideas that will build
the technological infrastructure for a new, clean energy economy.”

This is the second ARPA-E
grant awarded to projects involving superconducting research at UH in
partnership with SuperPower, the first member of the UH Applied Research Hub.
Last September, UH, SuperPower and two other institutions received a $4.2
million grant to develop an affordable, large-scale superconducting magnet
energy storage (SMES) system device. Energy storage is crucial in developing
the widespread use of wind and solar power.

In that project,
Selvamanickam and the UH-SuperPower research group are working to develop an HTS
wire that meets the performance and cost requirements of a commercial SMES
device through investigation of an innovative manufacturing process. By comparison, in this project the
researchers are investigating new ways to improve the superconducting wire
itself, enabling breakthrough use in superconducting generators.

“Both of these projects demonstrate the strength
of public-private partnerships to move technology forward in ways that can
greatly benefit us all,” said Rathindra N. Bose, UH vice chancellor/vice president of research and technology transfer. “These projects combine all the elements needed
to get a new technology to the market – the technology R&D, the development
of a high-tech work force, the manufacturing capability, the sub-components and,
finally, the path to the marketplace.”

About the University of Houston

The University of
Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university recognized
by The Princeton Review as one of the nation’s best colleges for undergraduate
education. UH serves the globally competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by
providing world-class faculty, experiential learning and
strategic industry partnerships. Located in the nation’s fourth-largest city,
UH serves more than 38,500 students in the most ethnically and culturally
diverse region in the country.

About
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

NREL is the U.S. Department of
Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency
research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for
Sustainable Energy, LLC.

About SuperPower

SuperPower Inc. a subsidiary of
Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI), was formed in March 2000 to
develop and commercialize high temperature superconductor (HTS) technology for
applications that benefit from high energy density, high magnetic fields and
green attributes, including energy, medical, transportation, research and other
sectors. To learn more, visit www.superpower-inc.com.

About Tai-Yang Research

The Tai-Yang Research Company is dedicated to the development of
military, space and commercial applications of high temperature superconductor
(HTS) materials. To learn more, visit www.tai-yang.com.

About TECO-Westinghouse Motor Company

The TECO-Westinghouse Motor Company is a premier supplier of AC
and DC motors and generators for petroleum, chemical, pulp, paper, mining,
marine propulsion, steel, electric utility and other industries throughout the
world. To learn more, visit www.tecowestinghouse.com.